Roald Dahl

You’ll never get anywhere if you go about what-iffing like that. Would Columbus have discovered America if he’d said ‘What if I sink on the way over? What if I meet pirates? What if I never come back?’ He wouldn’t even have started.

There is no life I know to compare with pure imagination. Living there, you’ll be free if you truly wish to be.

Having power is not nearly as important as what you choose to do with it.

Somewhere inside all of us is the power to change the world.

Human ‘beans’ is the only animals that is killing their own kind.

If you have good thoughts, they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.

So much of our time is spent in preparation, so much in routine, and so much in retrospect, that the amount of each person’s genius is confined to a very few hours.

I am certainly not one of those who need to be prodded. In fact, if anything, I am the prod.

Ladies and gentleman are permitted to have friends in the kennel, but not in the kitchen.

The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.

That which we call sin in others, is experiment for us.

The Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.

Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble.

That was Youth with its reckless exuberance when all things were possible pursued by Age where we are now, looking back at what we destroyed, what we tore away from that self who could do more, and its work that’s become my enemy because that’s what I can tell you about, that Youth who could do anything.

Man is the only animal that laughs and has a state legislature.

That which builds is better than that which is built.

There is no love sincerer than the love of food.

The wise man in the storm prays to God, not for safety from danger, but for deliverance from fear.

We are not won by arguments that we can analyze, but by tone and temper; by the manner, which is the man himself.

Any fool can make a rule, and every fool will mind it.

He never does a proper thing without giving an improper reason for it.